


to god i imagine it all starts to sound like applause

by blackwood (transjon)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boss/Employee Relationship, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, secretary martin, some self esteem issues, vaguely eye!martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: “Tell me about it,” Martin says quietly. “What it was like.”Elias pulls away slightly, tilts his head down to look at him.“What was what like?”Martin pulls his own face away from Elias’ chest where he’d been resting his head against the warm skin, sucks his lip between his teeth, nibbles on it. “Dying.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Elias Bouchard
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90





	to god i imagine it all starts to sound like applause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EnzymaticWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnzymaticWitch/gifts).



> this is mature instead of explicit because the sex scene is easily skippable, but it is an explicit sex scene, so just like, if you dont want to read that you can skip it. 
> 
> title is from that unwanted animal by the amazing devil
> 
> thank you SM for this prompt bc i have been . THINKING abt martinelias but theres no way i wouldve actually ever written anything without being pushed into it i had a [that one vine with the trick or treating drawing voice] grat tim

The contract burns in Martin’s hands. 

Not literally, of course. Metaphorically. Like he’s been caught red-handed, he supposes. Works well enough, that idiom, although what’s happened is the very opposite of what it means. He hasn’t been caught. Guess it’s the anticipation of being caught red-handed, in the abstract future. One of the future tenses. What would he know, he guesses. Nothing, really. 

“Is this correct?” Elias asks mildly. His eyes are on Martin’s CV, laid out on his desk like a dead body. Like he’s performing an autopsy, the corpse barely cold yet, bone saw in hand. Martin trembles as he watches Elias trace a finger over the qualifications, the employment history, double spaced, twelve point, two columns.

“Yes, sir,” Martin confirms. His hands aren’t sweaty. They aren’t. 

“Like I said,” Elias says, “with qualifications like these – and at your age, mind you – I would absolutely love to have you here.”

Martin nods. Relief mixes with anxiety. Ink and water. “Thank you, sir.”

Elias smiles at him. There’s no teeth in it, nothing weird at all, but it makes Martin feel vulnerable anyway. Exposed. “So, if you have a moment – why don’t you take that,” Elias points at the contract he’s holding, more pages than Martin thought a simple employment contract form would have, “and peruse it at your leisure. Just bring it back to me tomorrow, if you’d like. The paperwork I need from you should be there, too. I’ll just need to take some numbers down, all that. Get the information to payroll.”

“Yes, sir,” Martin says. There’s a numbness that threatens to spread from the top of his head down to his toes. He’s determined to keep it focused on one spot until he’s out of the building. He can dissociate on the way home. Knows the way well enough. No need to be able to focus.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Elias says. He gets up from behind his desk, offers his hand across it. Martin takes it. Elias’ hand is dry and warm, his grip firm. Martin smiles at him, a tight, professional smile, and when he lets go of his hand Martin turns to leave. 

“And Martin?” 

Martin turns around, fast as he can. “Yes, sir?”

Elias smiles at him. No teeth, nothing weird about it. Sharp anyway. “Lose the _yes, sir._ We’re all equals here.”

Martin offers him a weak smile. “Alright,” he agrees. Bites his tongue so he doesn’t tell him that he knows it’s bullshit. That he’s heard that so many times before. They’re equals until he slips, and then he’s his boss again. He bites his tongue. Walks out of the room. 

––

He’s back the next day, eight in the morning, cup of coffee in one hand, the signed contract in the other, safely tucked inside a plastic sleeve. When Elias sees him at his office door he smiles. Martin smiles back. Good, he thinks. This is good. 

––

And for a few months it is. 

––

Guess it shouldn’t be a surprise when Elias calls him into his office. 

“I know,” Elias says evenly.

“Okay,” Martin whispers. He can feel himself deflating. There’s really only one thing that it could be, really, and – it’s been a few months. He’d been sort of expecting it, almost, with how Elias’ gaze feels almost all-knowing on him – the way he feels like he should be on his toes. How it seems that wherever he goes inside this building Elias is already there. 

“You understand that I can’t let you keep this job, right?” 

Martin looks at his shoes, at Elias’ desk, at the portrait hanging behind him. Those porcelain cats on the bookshelves, staring at him with their piercing, unmoving eyes. “Yes,” he says. “I understand.”

It’s not the shortest he’s had a job. Sometimes people hire him, and then they phone his references, and then they fire him, all within a week. Or sometimes they hire him, and then they want to see his diploma, and he has to confess to not having one. All in all, this isn’t the worst he’s done. And he’s collected a few paychecks, already, so he’s okay, for a few weeks, until he can score another job. He turns around, slowly, and takes a step towards the door. 

“Where are you going?”

Martin turns around, confused. “To get my things.”

“Ah,” Elias waves his hand. “No need. I have an alternative idea.”

“Why would you want to keep me? After I lied to you?”

Elias smiles at him. It’s unnerving as ever. “Call it a hunch, or a feeling, or whatever you like. I like you, Martin. I’d like to keep you around.”

“Alright,” Martin says. “What’s the idea?”

“I have an open secretary position.”

Secretary, Martin thinks. Making calls for him, no doubt. Accepting parcels and mail. Fetching documents and papers and arranging meetings. Refilling the copier or the printer. Does he still have a fax machine? Whatever it is that a secretary does, these days, in real life. It occurs to him that he’s not actually sure what that is. He’s good at learning on the job, though. 

“Yeah,” Martin says. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“It pays a little less,” Elias warns him, but he’s handing another contract to him as he says it. It’s not as thick as the first one, but there is still a good stack of papers. “The benefits are the same. I’d hate for you to lose out on them.”

“I’ll look this over,” Martin says. He should probably be suspicious. 

“I thought you would,” Elias replies, and smiles, and smiles, and smiles –

––

Elias, with the ever watching eyes – the all seeing eyes ––

––

Don’t you want to see what it’s like, Martin’s brain says. What it’d be like to be wanted.

I am wanted, he says back. 

Where? By whom? his brain asks. 

Martin thinks about Elias. Thinks about those hands. Those eyes. The way he looks at him, so warmly, whenever he does the smallest of tasks. The way he talks to him like he’s a person. 

Maybe it’s a little sad, how little he needs, these days. His mum has been declining his calls lately. Not that that’s new at all. Just something that’s happening, still. Elias, coming into the office, always greets him first. He’d forgotten what that’s like. 

––

Time skips around like a foal learning to run, still wet and trembling but too sure of itself to keep itself from feeling the wind on its face. It’s March. The sidewalk is wet and icy. Martin doesn’t slip on it.

––

Elias doesn’t actually corner him. Not that he’d thought he would. Not that he’d thought he’d do anything at all. 

So: Elias doesn’t corner him. Elias takes a stack of papers directly from his hand, still warm from the copier, the smell of fresh ink strong on them, and Martin realizes abruptly that they’re the same height. Not that this is new. Not that he’s surprised. Just something he’d never put any thought into. Almost assumed Elias was taller than he was, sure, but not in any real detail. He just always registered to him as taller than he really is.

Not that he’s short. Martin isn’t, which means Elias isn’t either. 

Elias takes the papers from Martin’s hand, and Martin leaves his hand open, fingers stretched out, palm up, and Elias looks at his hand, the skin of the inside of his wrist, the calloused skin of his fingers, still rough from years of working with his hands, and then he touches his palm with the tips of his fingers.

Martin inhales sharply, and Elias turns his head slowly to look him right in the eyes. Those feverish, sharp, bright eyes –

“Elias,” he exhales. Elias’ fingers draw a slow circle over the skin of his palm, then trail over the lengths of his fingers, slow, light. The scrape of his fingernails is barely there. It’s just there enough.

“Martin,” he says, soft. Silky. Velvety, maybe. Is there a real difference, Martin wonders. Soft fabric. Fingers gliding over the expensive texture of it. Something nice to put against your skin. To envelope yourself with. Martin watches Elias lean forward in slow motion, hyper aware of each individual eyelash, each pore, the stubble on his cheeks that he can barely just see growing back in where he’d trimmed it neatly the day before. 

For a moment he thinks Elias is going to just stay there, that he’s going to wait for Martin to close the gap, that he’s not going to be the first to connect their mouths, but then, just when Martin prepares to move forward, Elias leans in, hand reaching to cup his jaw. 

“You’re my boss,” Martin mumbles against his lips, but he kisses Elias back with a desperate, feverish noise anyway. There’s a few moments where all there is is the wet sound of their mouths, the hot swipe of Elias’ tongue against the seam of his lips. It’s hypnotizing. Martin’s hands reach up to tangle themselves into Elias’ hair, but instead of kissing him harder he pulls away. 

“Hardly,” Elias says. “You do whatever you want, Martin. You don’t listen to anyone. Nobody tells you what to do.”

“Still,” Martin says. He struggles to keep himself from preening at his words. 

“Are you telling me to stop, Martin?” 

Martin looks at Elias, who looks back, with those unnaturally bright eyes, the sharp light in them iron and gemstone, and exhales. “No,” his lips shape themselves around the air. “I’m not.”

––

It’s not as different as it maybe should be. 

Martin brings him tea. It’s not really one of his duties. Just something he likes to do. Something extra, to make Elias feel good. Cared for. He hardly takes breaks, and this is a way to make him. Elias looks at him with a smile on his lips, most times, and even when he’s too focused on his work to acknowledge the offering, when he’s busy and mumbling to himself, even the times he’s snappish and tense he says thank you when Martin sets the cup on the desk carefully before slipping back out wordlessly. 

When he comes back, later, with papers, or to tell him to call someone back, or to let him know someone wants to see him, Elias smiles at him so warmly, and when he takes the cup, ready to hurry out again, his fingers linger on Martin’s fingers for just a second before allowing him to take it from him. 

––

He doesn’t remember why Elias told him about it at all. He doesn’t know why he wanted to know.

“Do they know?” Martin asks, voice tight and angry. “About the Eye. Or the fears. Or you – you being –”

He can’t say it. The truth about this place. The rotten core of it. Elias, with the unnatural eyes. Elias, with the body that he doesn’t belong in. 

Elias hums. “No.”

“Should they know?”

Elias looks at him, as if over invisible glasses. “Why should they?”

Martin shrugs. He deflates just a little. “Dunno. Might make the job easier.”

“They’ll figure it out,” Elias says. “If they’re any good at their job. Besides, it’s not that relevant, in any case. Knowing about working for the Eye won’t make their jobs harder or easier.”

“If you say so,” Martin says, but he doesn’t press the issue further. He should, he knows. He thinks about the people he barely got to meet, before he’d been moved away from them. The people who’d been there for a long time. People thinking maybe there could be connections, somewhere, between some of the things they’d read or seen. People who hadn’t just asked. Who didn’t know about the corpse underneath the building. In the tunnels they didn’t know about. 

––

Why him, he wonders. Why him? Who did Elias tell him? Sometimes when Elias talks to him he can tell he knows more than he should. Or he can tell that he’s wording his questions carefully. To prevent something, maybe. To stop himself from doing something. 

Equals, he thinks. We’re all equals here. 

Bosses never mean it. It’s something they say to make you trust them. So that when you fuck up you tell them instead of hiding it. So that you make yourself vulnerable. So that it’s easier for them to hunt you down. 

Is this something Elias is using against him? To manipulate him? Something. It must be something. 

––

“Don’t,” Martin says airily.

Elias’ hand stills where he’s filling a form, right in the middle of the loop of a perfectly calliographed L. “Don’t what?”

There’s a rustle of papers as Martin shakes the stack of papers in his hand. “Manipulate me.”

Elias chuckles, velvety, smooth. His eyebrows furrow mildly, like he’s not sure why Martin’s bringing this up at all. Maybe he isn’t. “I wouldn’t.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “Really?”

“Because you’re too smart,” Elias elaborates.

“You don’t care about that,” Martin points out. “You want to be the _smartest._ ”

“True,” Elias agrees. “Maybe I just wanted to compliment you.”

Martin puts the papers down on the desk. He goes to leave when he notices the empty tea cup on the desk. “Should I get you more tea?” 

“Hm? Oh, yes, please.”

Martin reaches across the desk to grab the empty one. Elias’ fingers close around his wrist as he’s pulling his hand back, fingers around the handle of the mug.

“Yes?” 

Elias makes eye contact, a small smile on his lips, reaching his eyes just barely. “Thank you, Martin,” he says. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“In shambles,” Martin quips. “I’ll be five minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Elias says warmly, and lets go of Martin’s wrist. 

––

“Will you show me?” Martin asks. The restaurant is quiet. The music is quiet. The chatter of the people around them is quiet. Martin’s voice is quiet as well.

Elias’ fork makes a soft clinking sound against the rim of his plate as he sets it down. It, too, is quiet. “Show you what?”

“Your body.” Martin feels like he should lower his voice further, but he’s certain if he tries to it won’t leave his mouth at all, words stumbling over his tongue, the velocity failing to carry them all the way out with no power behind them. 

“We’re in public,” Elias says airily. “You’ve seen my body, Martin. Many times.”

“Not what I meant,” Martin says. He manages the combination of sing-song voice and gritted teeth that annoys Elias. 

“No,” Elias says. “It’s disgusting.” He picks the knife and fork back up and digs into the mollusk shell on his plate, cuts off the piece of juicy flesh attached to it. 

“It’s been there a long time. You don’t want to see it. We can go see a horror movie, if you really insist on seeing decaying flesh. Or we can do a science project. It’s very easy to buy a steak, you know.”

“Fine, then,” Martin sulks. “I was just wondering.”

“No need to sulk,” Elias says. “Here, try this.”

“I’m not sulking,” Martin lies, but he leans forward obediently, closes his mouth delicately around the piece of seafood Elias has offered him. 

“Good?” Elias asks. His voice has gone soft again, in a sweet way this time. Not just to blend to the background chatter. 

“Mm,” Martin says. He’s still chewing. Elias watches him as he does, and when he’s done, he asks “what is it?”

“Mussels,” Elias says. “Have you had them?”

Martin gets momentarily stuck halfway between his pride and the truth. He knows what they look like. Seen them frozen, before, and fresh, sometimes. Never felt the need to buy them. And he never goes to these restaurants, usually. No need, really. Elias does. He goes with Elias. 

“No,” he says finally. “It was good.” 

“Shall we go to a seafood place next time?”

Martin shrugs. He’s plenty happy with his order of flatbread. Mozzarella and rocket and tomatoes and chicken. Tomato sauce. Balsamic glaze. “If you want to.”

“I’d love to have you try oysters,” Elias muses. “Have you had oysters?”

Martin could laugh. He doesn’t. “No,” he says. “I have not had oysters.”

Elias smiles at him. “Then it’s settled.”

And so it is.

––

Martin slams a stack of papers down on the desk with some force and then walks away from it in four big steps, all the way back to the door. 

“It is relevant,” he says. 

“Hm?”

“That you’re Eye. That this whole place is.”

Elias taps on the desk with his fingers a few times, right next to the stack of papers. “In what way?”

“You’re manipulating them all.”

“What do you care?”

Martin grinds his teeth the exact way he’d been told by the dentist not to. Something about the jaws and the teeth and the health of them. “It’s wrong.”

Elias shrugs. “Do you really think so? Or do you think you should think that?”

“I do think that,” Martin snaps. “Just because you decided morals don’t suit you doesn’t mean everyone agrees. And it doesn’t mean you get to tell me that I don’t know what I actually think.”

“Right,” Elias says dryly, and then, in a voice that makes it blatant that he’s not at all sorry, “apologies.”

Martin takes another step, this time back towards Elias. He thinks about walking back up to him but settles on pacing around the office like an angry cat instead. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” Elias says. “It’s just – it’s just.” He sighs. Rubs at his temples. “Look. It’s – this is just how the Institute works.”

“You created it,” Martin points out. “You get to change it.”

“What do you think is the harm, here?” Elias asks. “How do you think I’m hurting them? What is the actual, material harm I’m causing?”

“You’re betraying their trust. You’re letting them fumble in the dark. You’re – you’re watching them slog through what they think are just a whole bunch of spooky ghost stories with no connection to each other. They have no idea what they’re doing.”

“That’s all of life, Martin,” Elias says softly. “That’s just how it is.”

“It’s not,” Martin snaps. “Not all of it.”

Elias sighs. “Fine, not all of it. Most of it.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

Elias looks at him. It seems to be a trend. Those eyes. Those lips. Glint of steel. Iron and copper and rust. “It does,” he says. “For now, it does.”

Martin turns on his heels and walks out. Elias doesn’t call after him. 

––

Meeting Peter is –

“Don’t mess with him,” Elias’d said. “You shouldn’t ever actually meet him, but if you do, just remember – he’s very powerful, and he can bring this entire institution to its knees in a second.”

Martin had nodded. He’s dealt with powerful people before, although not at this scale before. He hadn’t thought it’d actually happen, sure, but some preparation is good, always, for any event, he finds. And here he is. 

“Elias is busy,” Martin chirps at the man. He smells vaguely of salt water. “I can take a message?”

“He’s in his office,” Peter points out. 

“Yes,” Martin agrees. “And he’s busy.”

Peter looks at him for a long second. His eyes are grey. Almost too light. Not steel. More like clouds. Martin looks back, tilts his head lightly. Peter looks away. 

“All tease, that man,” Peter says quietly. 

“Sorry?” 

“Makes appointments, asks me to come by, then forgets that he made them at all. Sometimes I almost think he does it just to make me come all the way here. Just to inconvenience me.”

Martin smiles at him, professional, pleasant. “I’m sure that’s not the case. He should be free in a,” he opens one of the desk drawers, finds the little planner notebook and a nice pen, “few hours, if you’d like me to let him know over lunch that you came by?”

Peter looks at him blankly for a few moments, like he’s not understanding. “No,” he says. “I don’t have time to wait.”

And then, without further comment, Peter turns around. Stomps out. Doesn’t quite slam the door, but doesn’t close it carefully either. 

Martin puts the pen and notebook back down. Through the glass window into Elias’ office Martin watches him lift his head from his paperwork. They make eye contact through the glass. The expression on Elias’ face stays carefully neutral. 

––

“Faster,” Martin grunts. “Come on.”

“Patience,” Elias says mildly, one wide hand splaying over Martin’s arse. “Don’t be needy. It’s not a good look on you.”

Martin grits his teeth and grinds his hips back. “Should’ve thought about that,” he says. “Before you decided to make it as hard as possible for me –”

“Discipline,” Elias interrupts, “is learnt, not taught.” 

Whatever the fuck that means. Martin tries to buck his hips backwards to force Elias to thrust into him, but he just takes a step back and then pulls out completely. 

“Elias,” Martin grunts. 

“Shh,” Elias says. His hand comes to rest on Martin’s lower belly, trails down, stops right before his fingers could reach to touch his cock. He takes the hand away. His cock nudges at Martin’s opening but instead of sliding in he just smears slick around, the head of his cock bumping against Martin’s. Martin swears. 

“You,” Elias says, and then he finally slides back in, “are – something.”

“Thanks,” Martin says dryly. The thrust of Elias’ hips knocks a breath out of him, although he stubbornly stifles the overt sound of it. 

“In a good way.”

“I’d hope so.”

Elias doesn’t say anything, just grunts. 

“Fuck, Martin,” he mumbles, hips stuttering. It’s the only moment of vulnerability Martin can manage to squeeze out of him. “Oh, fuck.”

When he comes inside Martin he stills completely, doesn’t pull out, doesn’t keep thrusting. Just stands there, glued to Martin’s back, arms around his waist. Martin squirms in his arms, tries to get any friction at all, to get him to move, to keep thrusting, or to pull out, anything more than the ache of being filled with nothing else to help him get any closer to the edge. 

Elias wraps his arms around him tighter to keep him from moving. Martin tries to squirm, to get free, but Elias’ grip is iron tight. 

“Fucker,” he mutters, “Peter’s right.”

It’s a cheap shot, but it works, Elias peeling himself away, his hips suddenly moving backwards, snapping back forward to drive into Martin. 

“How do you know what Peter thinks?” he snaps. 

“He came by,” Martin says, aiming for aloof. His voice comes out strangled instead. “You saw him.”

“What’d he say?” 

“Thought you were always watching. And listening. You were right there, Elias. Are you getting feebleminded in your old age?”

Elias’ hand snakes down between Martin’s legs and he spreads them eagerly, makes room for his fingers to touch his cock, rub over it fast and messy. It’s a little harder than what he likes, usually, but he arches into the pressure anyway, and Elias bites into the meat of his shoulder for just a second, just to get his teeth marks into his flesh. 

“Do you want me to? To watch you?” he asks, breath hot against Martin’s ear. 

“Ah,” Martin chokes out. His cock twitches, hips driving forward to meet Elias’ hand. “Not the point,” he manages out. 

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Elias mumbles. “You want me to watch you stand in my office with your hand down your trousers? Behind your desk?”

“No,” Martin whines, “No.” 

But his breath catches in his chest anyway, at the thought of Elias watching him through the eyes of one of the porcelain cats in the office, through one of the paintings, through the blinking webcam of his laptop. Thinks about Elias walking into the room to see Martin already dripping wet, seated on the edge of his desk, three fingers in his cunt, ready for Elias. Those eyes fixed on his face, not surprised, not shocked, just hungry and knowing and endless. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Elias says, and his fingers speed up on Martin’s cock until he’s whining, and then he pulls out abruptly. Martin, achingly empty, spread open and dripping, makes a sound of protest, but before he can open his mouth to say anything Elias shoves three fingers into him, fills him up with them. 

“Fuck,” he whimpers, “fuck.” 

“Language,” Elias chastises him, fingers pressing down searchingly until he finds the spot that makes Martin twitch and clench around his fingers. 

“Sorry,” Martin mumbles, “sort of – ah, sort of compromised right now –”

“Hardly a reason,” Elias tells him. His fingers slip and stumble on Martin’s cock, the hard shaft of it, and Martin’s hips twitch away instinctively. “Do you want my hands or not?” 

“Sorry,” Martin says hastily, grinds against his fingers again, “sorry. Yes, please, please –”

“You don’t have to beg,” Elias says, but he sounds pleased. Smug. “But I do like the sound of it.”

“I know,” Martin says. It’s so hard to snap at him when all he wants to do is moan. “Please make me come, Elias –”

“Well, since you asked nicely,” Elias says, pleasantly, fingers crooking inside of him, the hand on his cock speeding up until Martin’s screaming –

––

“Tell me about it,” Martin says quietly. “What it was like.”

Elias pulls away slightly, tilts his head down to look at him.

“What was what like?”

Martin pulls his own face away from Elias’ chest where he’d been resting his head against the warm skin, sucks his lip between his teeth, nibbles on it. “Dying.”

“I haven’t died, Martin,” Elias points out gently. 

“Being reborn, then.”

Elias closes his eyes, sighs. “Like being reinvented. Like shedding everything that has ever held me down. Like – like I’m the most powerful person alive. Like I’m more than a person.”

“Every time?” 

Elias smiles. “Just the first time. After that it was just,” he inhales, waves his hand vaguely. “Like I’d been born a new thing. Something that can’t be held down. It was no longer extraordinary.”

Martin presses his face against Elias’ chest again. He feels the beat of his heart, the movement of his ribcage. Still breathing, he thinks. Suppose if he wasn’t alive there’d be no reason for him to swap bodies, after all. He could live forever, just in the skin he’s already in, the muscle never decaying, the skin never yellowing. 

“Does anything feel extraordinary anymore?” Martin asks quietly. 

“You,” Elias says, “and me.” He sounds earnest enough. Martin guesses he shouldn’t be surprised to hear the answer, shouldn’t feel his heart thump in his chest, offbeat and quick. Rabbit seeing a fox. Fox seeing a fox. Martin tries to remember which animals are cannibals, or if any of them are particularly known for it. Do they know they could be eaten any time? Do they fear anything that looks familiar? Does familiarity feel like a threat? Does being equals mean anything, to them? Is it a thing they’re capable of understanding?

“Okay,” he finally says. “Okay.”

Elias’ chin settles on top of his head again, pointy and hard and heavy. He feels familiar, but not the same. If he were to eat Martin alive it wouldn’t be cannibalism. 

––

Martin sets the cup of tea down gently with one hand, barely managing to do so without spilling any. The sugar and milk he’s carrying in his other hand make it hard to balance, but he’d been determined to make it in one trip. 

“Here,” he says softly. He measures two teaspoons of sugar, sprinkles them over the liquid with his bottom lip worried between his teeth. Elias takes the spoon from him, gives it a stir, and then pauses obediently, patiently when Martin tilts the little carafe full of milk, pours a splash in. Little gold decorations on the glass of it. Luxurious. Very unnecessary. Very Elias. 

Martin likes his tea without milk. Some honey. Elias likes his tea to be steeped in the optimal temperature for the specific variety, sugar added when it’s still hot, cooled down with just a splash of milk. Martin’s tasted his tea, before, and it isn’t bad, but he doesn’t like it very much either. 

“Thank you, Martin,” Elias says softly. 

“Yeah,” Martin replies, suddenly flustered. “What’re you planning?”

Elias faces him, elegant fingers hooked through the ear of the mug. The smile he gives him is one he has just for him. Martin’s pretty sure it is, at least – no teeth, no sharpness, nothing weird, nothing strange. 

“Nothing sinister, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “Budgets. Boring stuff, really.”

“Uh huh,” Martin says, not exactly satisfied. “And your patron’s all fine with that?”

“Been for hundreds of years, hasn’t it?”

Martin supposes that’s fair. “Just expected something more exciting, is all.”

“You really do expect the worst of me, don’t you?” Elias notes, but he sounds amused. “A cartoon villain. What do you think I’m planning?”

“I don’t know,” Martin says airily. “End of the world. Murder.”

“Hardly something the Eye would enjoy,” Elias says mildly. “What’s there to know if the world ends? That’s it. Nothing more to know.”

“How it feels,” Martin says. “Or watching the suffering. The feeling of life leaving your body. The fear of it. It’s better when it’s scary, isn’t it? When you can really feel it. That’s what you Eye people like.”

“You’re Eye, too,” Elias points out, as if it’s obvious, as if he’s reminding Martin of something that he has no business forgetting.

“I’m not,” Martin mumbles. 

“You want to see. You want to know.”

“I don’t like to be manipulated. I don’t want people to know things I don’t.”

“You want to know you’re not being manipulated. You want to know things other people don’t. You want to be the person who knows more than anyone else, for once.”

Martin reaches over so that he can twirl a few strands of Elias’ hair around his fingers. “Everyone wants to know.”

“Not everyone. Not as much as you do.”

“I want to know a normal amount.”

“Everything is relative, Martin.”

Martin hums, displeased. “Don’t look inside my head.”

“I’m not,” Elias says. He takes Martin by the wrist, guides his hand gently to his lips. The kiss he gives Martin’s knuckles is dry, long, just lips on skin. “It’s obvious. I can tell, without looking. How much you crave knowledge. How much you hate being in the dark. Martin, all alone, on the outside. Everyone else knowing something, except for you. Even when there’s nothing to know at all. Even when you’re just as much in the dark as everyone else, or you know everything everyone else does as well.”

“Do you think you know me that well?” Martin asks. He ignores the pang that goes through him, the sense of dread, deep and unpleasant. 

“No,” Elias says. He smiles against Martin’s knuckles. “Nobody really knows anyone. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

He did. He does. It’s what he hates the most. He looks away. He looks at the painting behind Elias. At the wall. At Elias. 

Those eyes. Blue green brown steel silver. In the light his teeth are almost visible through his lips. Like a corpse. Like a wild animal. Not human enough to cannibalize him. Not animal enough for it to be just the food chain doing its work. Equals. 

“If you don’t tell them, I will,” Martin says softly. 

“You won’t,” Elias says. “You like watching them stumble just as much as I do. You like knowing things they don’t.”

Martin draws his hand back, lips twisting into a scowl. 

“Get back to your budgets,” he says. “And be ready to leave at six. I’ve ordered a cab.”

“Yes, sir,” Elias says. Smiles. Martin smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @transjon and on twit @transjarchivist (18+, adults only pls!!)


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